MA Creative Writing, Exeter University Creating a Poem…live…part one
This is an invitation to join me in a 4-stage writing process to give birth to a poem.
Nine of us were assembled in a small seminar room waiting for kick-off to get the Writing Poetry module underway.
Anticipation, a little conversation, but we don’t know each other, so it’s muted.
In walked a poet…and a teacher. I won’t name him; description is more important. Maybe early 50s, torn jeans, old jacket, various rings on a variety of fingers, earrings, an impressive head of hair, and peering eyes. Every inch a poet. And with a rich vocal delivery.
And the content of lecture 1 was formational, rather than a download of information; an introduction to his way of detecting the ‘sweet spot’ in a poem as a combination of imagery, musicality, and shape (form, direction, and energy).
So, this blog post is to invite you into the process of writing a poem.
Stage 1. Read and reflect on
Stage 2. Write a similar poem. A list. On an object close to hand. I chose the fountain pen I was holding to take notes as a starting point
Stage 3. Pinch one line from the poem and build from there
Stage 4. Submit the poem to the group and lecturer for critical appraisal….next week. Yikes.
Stage 1 George Szirtes poem, Some Sayings about a Snake
Loved this poem. It enters by the ear and exits through the navel. Come on! Whatever he had in mind that rocks my boat.
Stage 2. My ‘List poem’ on a fountain pen…written during the lecture, no time for edits
Some Sayings About A Fountain Pen
I don’t know, it’s a handful high
Spending time twitching to and fro
Weighing less with each hint of movement
A clock of sorts in indigo
Disturbing, that so much darkness
Lies at the core
A column of unformed words
It draughts Constitutions
Annoys restless Monarchs
The slender curve of the nib
Calms the writer
Fools the writer
Disappoints the writer if
It scratches or flows like glue
A pen should not be hard work
It lasts until it fades
The outer outlasting the inner
Unlike the writer
So…not quite a strict list. I found it impossible to constrict an image to a sentence. Maybe with time, I could have pared it down to essentials? But the task was to extract a line or a phrase, a key idea from the poem and re-work it. The last two lines, for me, were the message in the bottle.
Stage 3. Reworked poem (you may recognise this as Friday’s Irregular Poetry Corner Post)
Unlike the writer
Don’t be duped
Nothing escapes
The onward march to
I don’t know where
Swan Spring quills
Sleek-black biros
Grass-green rollerballs
SmartScreen scribblers, but
Who designed us
To chance upon
A charcoal brew of dyes
To daub, to draw, to draft?
Attached one end, and
Conceived in mystery
Words, hidden in ink,
Flood onto the page
And to mediate?
A handheld instrument,
Twitching to and fro
Emptying its gifts
Until the ink fades,
Nib-scratching the paper,
It’s outer outlasting the inner
Unlike the writer
Stage 4. Next week. Seatbelt on. I can see the editors’ sharp knives, glinting in the eyes of my fellow students and my every inch the poet, lecturer, AB.